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7 Ways to Set Up Automated Customer Service in 2019

Every second a customer has to wait for your support team to respond is another second closer to that customer switching to a faster competitor. In fact, Forrester's research shows that 66% of adults believe that the most important thing a company can do is value their time during a service interaction.

Therefore, it can be a smart move for you to invest in automated customer service tools if your team can't keep up with your current customer demand. Automating your customer service functions will help save your reps time and improve the customer's experience with your brand.

In this post, we'll break down what automated customer service is as well as the best automation tools available for your team in 2019.

Automated Customer Service

Businesses automate their customer service teams by integrating tools that automatically complete tasks for their reps. These tools perform a rep's daily actions for them, saving them time and improving their workflow. Companies who are struggling to meet their customer service demands should adopt these types of tools to alleviate their support team's workload.

The main difference between automated and traditional customer service is that an automated system can run 24/7 without any additional costs. Rather than hiring employees to work late-night shifts, technology like chatbots and AI can manage incoming service requests during your company's off-hours.

This approach also lessens some of the pressure placed on your customer service reps and allows them to focus on relationship-building with your customers. Instead of having to spend time writing emails or creating tickets, reps can be troubleshooting for customers and finding solutions that will benefit them in the long run.

There are many ways that you can implement automated customer service in your own business. In the next section, check out the list of automated customer service software to help you get started.

7 Best Automated Customer Service Software in 2019

If you're looking for the best tools to automate your customer service, take a look at some of the software options we have listed below.

1. HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot's Service Hub automates customer service in a way that makes the customer's experience still feel human. It offers tools, such as live chat, to connect with your customers in real time. Customer issues can be logged as tickets and assigned to various team members to keep their workflow moving faster.

You can also create and fill in your own knowledge base articles for two-way success. Customers can search for their own answers, and your agents can use these company resources when resolving their own customer problems.

The product also offers feedback tools, such as customer satisfaction surveys, that get translated into actionable data results. With the Service Hub, you're not just helping customers at a specific moment but ensuring their happiness throughout their experience with your business.

Price: Free

2. Front App

Front App provides a strong, collaborative inbox that supports email, SMS, chat, social media, and other forms of communication with customers. This improves the customer experience because it ensures every customer service rep has access to the same information about the customer.

Additionally, you can automatically assign conversations to certain employees to avoid sending multiple responses to customers or having incoming emails slip through unnoticed. Also, this platform helps you respond to customers through collaborative drafts and comments, rather than having to continuously forward emails and await coworker edits.

Price: $15/month

3. Freshdesk

Freshdesk's intuitive customer service software prides itself on features that organize your helpdesk, plan for future events, eliminate repetitive tasks, and manage new tickets. You can also streamline conversations across various channels and collaborate with the rest of your team on complex cases.

While your team's responses are automated and will be sent out faster, there are also quicker options available for customers who need more immediate solutions. With Freshdesk, you can build a knowledge base for your product with tutorials and DIY guides and even foster user communities to encourage your customers to work together.

Price: Free

4. NICE inContact CXone

NICE inContact's CXone product includes a four-step journey to customer success. Its "Omnichannel Routing" feature helps employees streamline conversations across several support channels and its analytics turns important customer insights into actionable results.

NICE inContact's also has a "Workforce Optimization" tool that maximizes your team's potential by helping employees provide proactive customer service in their support cases. And, Automation & AI allows for automated actions that re-prioritize agents' time away from menial tasks and increase the speed of responses.

This call center software even includes a plethora of features that help you meet your customers' needs: interactive voice response, proactive outbound calls, AI chatbots, customer satisfaction surveys, quality management, CRM integrations, reporting, and many more. These features make for a flexible, reliable, and valuable customer service experience.

Price: Variable

5. Team Support

This customer service software is perfect for B2B companies. First, it encourages more communication between team members by allowing multiple agents to collaborate on the same tickets, products, customers, or solutions. You can also gain important insights about your customer interactions through its reporting and analytics.

Team Support's product is revolutionary in that it helps customers take charge of their own service experience. The customizable, flexible interface lets customers chat with agents, search for answers and solutions, and check on the status of their open cases.

Price: Free

6. bpm'online service

Bpm'online's cloud application offers full-cycle service management, meaning this product allows for easy management of your omnichannel communications. Its interface helps your agents concentrate by only showing the data they need to compile the task at hand.

Additionally, there are many other helpful features, such as customer segmentation — grouping customers by certain parameters to help automate responses within segments — social media integrations, knowledge bases, data synchronization, and more. Pre-defined processes help agents stay on track and continuously deliver excellent customer service.

Price: Free

7. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk helps your reps better prioritize their workload by automatically sorting tickets based on due dates, status, and need for attention. Reps can easily access previous customer conversations so they don't have to waste time searching for information about the customer.

Based on keywords in the ticket, the product automatically pulls up articles from the internal knowledge base so you can quickly copy and paste solutions. As with some of the other products on this list, the product allows for team collaborations, user communities, and helpful analytics.